Notes from Howard's Sabbatical from Working. The name comes from a 1998 lunch conversation. Someone asked if everything man knew was on the web. I answered "no" and off the top of my head said "Fidel Castro's favorite color". About every 6-12 months I've searched for this. It doesn't show up in the first 50 Google results (this blog is finally first for that search), AskJeeves says it's: red.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Combating Lies

Krugman had an op-ed yesterday that's great. Addicted to Bush "For a couple of years, it was the love that dared not speak his name. In 2008, Republican candidates hardly ever mentioned the president still sitting in the White House. After the election, the G.O.P. did its best to shout down all talk about how we got into the mess we’re in, insisting that we needed to look forward, not back...In recent weeks, G.O.P. leaders have come out for a complete return to the Bush agenda, including tax breaks for the rich and financial deregulation. They’ve even resurrected the plan to cut future Social Security benefits."

He gives several examples, but here's one: "On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.” So now the word is that the Bush-era economy was characterized by “vibrancy.” I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “vibrant.” The actual record of the Bush years was (i) two and half years of declining employment, followed by (ii) four and a half years of modest job growth, at a pace significantly below the eight-year average under Bill Clinton, followed by (iii) a year of economic catastrophe. In 2007, at the height of the “Bush boom,” such as it was, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than it had been in 2000."

Krugman also commented today on Iraq, Again. "Were we lied into war? Yes." and he has to point to the WSJ and Financial Times for his evidence, Iraq intelligence fiasco could happen again. "As documents released by the inquiry make clear, the government was warned the invasion would increase the threat of terrorism to the UK. All this was disregarded, as Mr Blair embarked determinedly on his great adventure with George W. Bush into the mire of Mesopotamia, creating laboratory conditions for the urban warfare urged on jihadis by Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s strategist. It is now harder than ever to avoid the conclusion that the Bush and Blair governments cherry-picked morsels of intelligence. "

Every reporter covering congress, politics, the White House, etc... should be completely familiar with this data so that when someone, anyone, spouts off nonsense about the Bush Tax cuts actually increasing revenue, they can rake them over the coals and call them a liar or ignorant, cause there ain't any other choices.

It took me about 10 minutes to find this data and post it here.

It's simply a big lie that reducing taxes on the wealthy increases revenues at the Federal Level.

Facts are facts and most repubs don't care for facts because they generally don't support their positions. They have feasted electorally on the big lie for 30 years now.

They would rather be called hypocritical or ignorant than admit that their cherished bedrock ideas are simply bullshit, otherwise the whole house of cards may come crashing down.

The really scary thing is, about 40% of the country buys their nonsense hook, line, and sinker.